Wireless networking has grown into an expansive field. Specifically, Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) has received much attention as a technology for wireless local area networks (WLAN). Furthermore, various new technologies such as WiMax are receiving attention as possibly a wireless backhaul technology for internetworking wireless networks for hotspots and 3G wireless networks. Although significant WiFi penetration has been made in the SOHO (small office/home office) and residential markets; WiFi's penetration within the enterprise and the carrier has been limited by a number of challenges. Some of the key challenges faced by the carrier, large campus and enterprise networks in adopting wireless networks have been lack of reliability and scalability. These coupled with the lack of multi-streaming, multi-service support and limitations in a client node capacity have all contributed to hinder the penetration of the mobile wireless networks on a wider scale.
A typical wireless network includes multiple mobile nodes that operate in an ad-hoc manner or else are connected to an access point and operate in an infrastructure manner. Certain conventional systems incorporate multiple mobile nodes interconnected with a single access point and utilize a single wireless connection pathway for their communications. In a traditional wireless architecture, the wireless connection pathways are shared. In such a topology, the mobile nodes have to share the access to the medium. Furthermore, access points typically utilize a single frequency or channel that interconnects with one mobile node at a given time. Typically the access point provides the primary ways for forwarding information from the given mobile nodes to the local area network (LAN) utilizing a back haul connection pathway. In a traditional wireless network the back haul connection is typically a wired interface to the local area network.
In a conventional wireless network, one of the compelling performance limitations is packet latency. Latency in this context refers to the time delay between when a given mobile node is ready to make a request to the access point for transferring a packet, and the time when access point is prepared to accept the packet transfer and so informs the mobile node. If a given mobile node makes a request to an access point that it has a packet ready for transfer, but the access point has already arbitrated access of the medium to a different mobile node then the first mobile node has no choice but to wait until the medium is available once again. One of the prevalent problems with such a traditional wireless network is that the access to the network from the first mobile node's perspective is unpredictable. Such a variation in the access of the medium results in a lack of quality of service and is of paramount concern in real time network services. Furthermore, as more mobile nodes enter the range of an access point, the average bandwidth available to each mobile node decreases by virtue of the shared medium.
Thus, an integrated switching wireless telecommunications network capable of supporting multiple applications, multiple streams in a scalable and reliable manner is needed.